Truth or Dare is the story of a mind breaking and the resulting consequences. Mike (John Brace) comes home and finds his wife Sharon (Mary Fanaro) in bed with Jerry (Bruce Gold), his best friend. Disgusted, he leaves as she's breaking up with him. Mike just drives and drives trying to figure out what to do. He debates on killing himself, but stops. On his way to a campground to spend the night, he picks up a beautiful hitchhiker who says she's going anywhere he is. Suspicious, huh? Apparently he doesn't think so and just takes her with him. Once there, she says her name is Sharon as well. To get their minds off of their worries, she suggests playing "Truth or Dare." She ends up daring him to pull his eye out! He dares her to do it instead and she does. But she's not hurt! She dares him to cut off his finger and it just gets worse from there. Of course, when you're fighting with your own mind, it's going to be messy. Before he dies though, the park ranger finds him and calls in the emergency. He's taken to the hospital and sent to a psych ward.
13 months later we pick up there, where Mike's been released from the hospital. He doesn't seem like the same nice guy anymore though! First thing, he heads to his ex-wife Sharon's house. There he learns that she is still with Jerry and both are home. Needless to say he's not happy with the situation and causes a lot of trouble. Mike gets caught and sent back and somehow sneaks a knife and a grenade in there! What better place to find people that will do insane dares than a nuthouse. Weapons seem to just appear out of nowhere for this guy, especially after he escapes the asylum. By this point, Mike reminds me of Jason in that he just never dies!
With a very small budget and shot in 12 days, Truth or Dare is actually a bit impressive considering the limitations. The writer and director, Tim Ritter, was only high school age, had just graduated, and had a lot of problems because of it. He does explain why the weapons just appeared out of nowhere and why there were continuity errors. It's good to know that he did plan for those things to be answered but it just didn't happen due to circumstances beyond his control. These and quite a few more interesting facts were all learned from the special Behind-the-Scenes featurette. Oh, and just so you know, on the menu "Go Mad" is play movie, "Bloody Chunks" is the chapter selection and "Explosive Extras" are the special features. Also if you're a die-hard Backstreet Boys fan, you might want to know that a very young AJ McLean plays young Mike in the flashbacks.
Truth or Dare? A Critical Madness is not the greatest horror movie that I've seen, but it is good 80's horror fun. If you like that style horror movie, you should check it out today!
